There are five extant species of rhinoceros, three in Asia and two in Africa. Due to successive waves of poaching and habitat destruction, the majority of the remaining rhinoceroses belong to one of the two African species: Ceratotherium simum (white) or Diceros bicornis (black). Now, even those species are threatened. The threat comes from a renewed demand for rhinoceros horn in East and Southeast Asia. While rhinoceros horn has been prized by many cultures for a variety of reasons, its current resurgence is due, in part, to its past use in Traditional Asian Medicine (TAM). A full explanation of TAM and its transmogrifications is beyond the scope of this disclosure; however, in Western terms, the putative medicinal indications of rhinoceros horn include alleviating fever, reducing pain, fighting infection, preventing or eliminating hangover, curing cancer, and increasing sexual function.
New technologies to ameliorate the rhinoceros poaching crisis are being developed. Unfortunately, many of these technologies have inherent disadvantages. For instance, autonomous drones, which can be used to patrol rhinoceros ranges, may be appropriated by poachers to hunt rhinoceroses. This might occur through computer hacking of legitimate drones, corruption of legitimate drone operators (so-called “khaki collar crime”), or deployment of illegitimate drones. Another technology with an inherent disadvantage is the genetic fingerprinting of rhinoceroses. It is true that DNA profiling systems can help law enforcement solve wildlife crimes. At the same time, though, such systems can also be used by consumers to identify counterfeit horn (e.g., water buffalo horn), thereby putting more pressure on the black market to deliver authentic rhinoceros horn. Finally, an apparatus to automatically scrape horn from a domesticated rhinoceros is disclosed in the literature (Chinese Patent CN 100407907 C). Ethical concerns aside, the farming of rhinoceroses for their horn cannot scale to meet growing demand. That is, harvesting is constrained by the number of rhinoceroses in existence, birth rates, death rates, and the rate of horn growth per animal.